by Fiona Lowe
What the hell had he just done? He’d always prided himself on his finesse with women, of giving rather than taking, and yet right now, without any thought for her or her comfort, he’d kissed her senseless like a frustrated and randy teenager. He pulled back, mortified. ‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. I shouldn’t have kissed you.’
She stiffened slightly and her eyes, normally so clear, suddenly clouded, but then she shook her head. ‘Please don’t feel bad, it’s not you, it’s me. I just can’t do this right now.’ She drew in an unsteady breath and rested her palm on his forearm. ‘I know it sounds really clichéd but what I really need is for you to be a colleague and a friend.’
A friend.
His blood drained from his groin and tried to perfuse his brain. A beautiful woman stood in front of him asking for his friendship. He’d never really done friendship with a woman and every part of him recoiled. He wanted her in his arms, he wanted her naked, and he wanted her wrapped tightly around him. Hell, he just wanted her.
He silently cursed the complete irony of the situation. His body had finally come roaring back to life, pulsing with virile good health, and the one woman he wanted didn’t want him.
Somehow he managed to smile. ‘Sure, I understand.’
Relief streamed across her face. ‘You do?’
‘I do.’
The hell you do, he told himself.
But he had to pretend he did. He had no other choice.
CHAPTER SIX
‘HEY, Dr Kirby, I bet you I can race you to those big trees.’ Cooper pointed to the large Norfolk pines at the far end of the big asphalt car park at the back of Kids’ Cottage.
‘You’re on.’ Kirby stooped down and tightened her shoelaces, smiling to herself. Three days ago Cooper had been withdrawn and sullen but the Port sunshine and the fabulous staff at KC had drawn him out. ‘But do I get a handicap?’
Cooper flexed his fingers which extended from gloved palms. ‘Nah, that’s mine and today I’m not sharing.’
She grinned at the determination on his face. ‘You’re a tough opponent.’ She put her left foot forward on an imaginary line as Cooper dropped his hands. ‘Ready, set.’
‘Go!’ Cooper thrust forward, the wheels of his wheelchair spinning quickly as he propelled himself down the slight incline and toward the trees.
Kirby ran hard, needing to put in some serious effort to keep up, and she arrived at the pines seconds after him, panting for breath.
A beaming boy full of the flush of a win gave her faint praise. ‘You did OK, Doc, better than my camp counsellor. I beat him by heaps!’
Too breathless to laugh, she rested her hands against her thighs. ‘Thanks, Cooper, I like to keep fit.’ She caught her breath and then headed back toward the main building, leaving Cooper at the archery range. Glancing at her watch, she increased her pace as she’d promised to do story time for the younger campers.
She loved spending time at KC and couldn’t understand why Nick didn’t want to do any work here. Why he really preferred not to work with children at all. She wondered if it was because Melbourne City was so very close to the Royal Children’s Hospital so not many children came through Emergency. Perhaps he hadn’t worked with many kids and paediatrics put him out of his comfort zone. But that reason didn’t quite gel with her because Nick Dennison had a bring-it-on attitude to life and nothing seemed to faze him.
It really shouldn’t bother her but it nagged at her because it was yet another part of the unsolved puzzle that was Nick, and she hated to admit it but the man fascinated her. He shouldn’t because he wasn’t her type at all. No man could be her type now.
Still, Nick not wanting to work at KC meant she didn’t have to share the kids with anyone. She treasured that, visiting most days, even when she wasn’t needed for her professional services. Although there was a large group of diabetic children visiting this week, not all the kids had a medical condition and many campers came to give their parents a break and a chance to sort out issues in their own lives. Often these children needed a lot more TLC than the kids who had a medical condition they’d grown to accept.
She loved children—loved their unbridled enthusiasm, their abundant curiosity and the sheer joy they could get from the simplest things. Her work here kept her busy, but it also kept her sane, filling a big hole in her life, filling a need.
Nick fills a need.
Nick. A vivid image of sea-green eyes filled with the simmering heat of desire flooded her, making her swallow hard.
Two weeks had passed since she’d called at Riversleigh and visited Nick at home. Two weeks since he’d kissed her senseless, reducing her to a quivering mass of pulsating need that had driven every coherent thought from her head. She’d revisited that kiss every day from every angle, from every blissful touch. She’d lost herself completely—melting into his arms and giving herself over to the intoxicating way his mouth had roamed deliciously over hers, sparking trails of glorious sensation that had spun and wove, tantalising her until she’d vibrated with pleasure and yearned for more.
Pathetically, it had only taken the touch of one kiss for her to ignore every promise she’d made to herself. She’d caved in completely and returned his kiss with the fervour of a lust-struck adolescent and taken as much from him as she could get. She’d absorbed his touch, savoured his earthy taste and revelled in the cocoon of his arms, never wanting the kiss to end.
But as the pressure of his mouth had lessened and his lips had trailed gloriously along her jaw, the slight change in his touch had been enough for a tiny but rational fissure to pierce her desire-fuelled haze. Panic had immediately surged. She’d pulled back, half hating what she was doing but knowing it was the right thing.
No matter how she’d once imagined her life playing out, she knew that dream was dead and that getting involved with any man was impossible. She knew that to be an irrefutable truth just as she knew the world to be round. She couldn’t offer a man the future he would want—a future that she longed for but knew could never happen.
That was why Anthony had trashed her heart and left her, and why all other men would eventually leave her too. No way was she ever risking her bruised and shattered heart again to such wrenching pain.
Instead, she threw herself into caring for kids because it was as close as she was going to get to a child of her own.
She opened the library door to shrieks of, ‘Read this one, Kirby,’ and four enthusiastic pre-schoolers mobbed her, each clutching their own choice of book. Laughing, she collapsed onto the bright cushions and beanbags and gathered the children in close. ‘We can read them all. Let’s start with this story about the hare and his nut-brown baby.’
Warm bodies snuggled in, heads rested on her shoulders and her lap, and podgy hands touched her. She breathed in deeply, knowing intrinsically that she needed the comforting touch of these children as much as they needed her time and care.
The loud clang of metal against metal roused them all from their fourth story. Kirby finished reading the sentence, placed a bookmark between the pages and closed the book. ‘That’s the dinner bell, gang. Let’s skip to the dining hall.’
‘I want to hop.’ A small but determined five-year-old stood with her hands authoritatively on her hips.
Kirby smiled and adopted a mediating approach. ‘We can do that too but maybe we should hold hands.’
With lots of giggles and squeals, they made their way across the quadrangle to the mess hall, where the girls’ camp counsellor waited to take them into dinner. ‘Wash your hands first.’
As the girls obediently lined up at the taps at the base of the stairs, the counsellor smiled at Kirby. ‘Thanks for doing story-time. It gave me a chance to telephone their parents and reassure them that all is well.’
A real sense of community rolled through her. ‘It’s my pleasure. I think I enjoy the stories more than they do.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘But I’d better get going or else the supermarket will be closed and I’m
getting tired of tinned spaghetti on toast.’
With a quick wave to the girls, Kirby ducked behind the old, grey, salt-weathered buildings and made her way back toward her car. She’d just pressed the auto-unlock button when she heard someone call her name and she turned toward the voice.
Hurrying toward her was Judy Dalton, the woman in charge of KC, her round cheeks pink with exertion. ‘Oh, I’m so glad I caught you. Ben Hadley, one of the diabetic boys, has just vomited everywhere and he’s looking a bit pale and wan.’
‘Vomiting before dinner? Has he had his before-dinner insulin?’ Kirby opened the boot and pulled out her medical kit, a thread of concern weaving through her.
Judy gave a quick nod. ‘Yes, he’d just come up to sick bay to have it, which is why I left Phillipa with him, trying to encourage him to eat a jelly snake, and I ran to catch up with you.’
‘I’m glad you caught me.’ Kirby slammed the boot closed, hoping she could reach the boy before he had a hypo.
They jogged to the sick bay and found thirteen-year-old Ben lying on the bed, his face very white—even his freckles looked pale. Beads of sweat lined his forehead, dripping into his hair, and he’d pulled his legs up under his chin. Shaking, he gripped a large monometal bowl and promptly vomited into it.
‘That’s the third time he’s vomited.’ Phillipa quickly exchanged the bowl for a clean one. ‘He can’t have much more left in his stomach.’
Kirby pulled out her glucometer machine. ‘I gather he wasn’t able to hold down the snake.’
The woman shook her head. ‘No, that came up too.’
‘Hey, mate, sorry you’re feeling sick.’ Kirby knelt down beside Ben and put her hand on his forehead, her fingers hot from the heat radiating from his skin. ‘Because you’ve vomited just after having insulin we need to give you some glucose to prevent a hypo. I’m going to put in a drip so you don’t get dehydrated, and when your blood-sugar levels are sorted, we’ll work out what’s making you sick, OK?’
‘OK.’ The word came out in the familiar resigned tone that kids with chronic medical conditions often used.
‘Finger jab first.’ Kirby gave Ben a reassuring smile, quickly pricked his finger and carried out the glucometer reading. As expected, his blood sugar was too low. ‘I’m going to give you mini-dose glucagon injection and then insert the drip.’
‘My stomach really hurts.’ Ben tensed up as a spasm hit him.
Kirby chewed her lip and swallowed a sigh. Vomiting in children could be due to so many different things—appendicitis, urinary-tract infection, meningitis. The list ran through her head as she injected the glucagon so the insulin had something to work on.
‘Phillipa, can you please take Ben’s temperature with the ear thermometer while I insert the IV?’ Kirby handed the instrument to the woman and quickly primed the IV tubing.
‘Thirty-nine point one.’ Phillipa tossed the disposable earpiece into the bin.
‘I thought he felt hot.’ Kirby added an antipyretic to her list of drugs for Ben. Wrapping the tourniquet around his arm, she quickly found a vein, which was reassuring as often kids dehydrated really quickly. ‘Hold still, Ben, it will be over in a moment.’ She slid the IV cannula home and turned the drip onto a medium rate and gave him some Maxalon for the vomiting. ‘Right, well, that combined with the rescue dose of glucagon should keep your blood-sugar level above five as well as keeping you hydrated. I’ve given you something to help the nausea and the fever but now I need to examine you. Tell me where your tummy hurts.’
‘Everywhere.’ Ben’s voice broke on a sob.
She stroked his forehead. ‘You poor old thing. I just need to have a gentle feel, OK?’ Lifting his T-shirt, she started a gentle palpation of his abdomen, half expecting to find some guarding and rebound tenderness on the right side. Acute appendicitis presented with fever, vomiting and pain.
‘Kirby.’ Judy walked into the room, supporting a boy who was shivering violently. ‘We’ve got another customer.’ She laid the boy down on the other bed in the room. ‘This is Cameron and he’s diabetic as well.’
‘I’m gonna puke.’ Cameron heaved.
With the skill of experience Kirby managed to push a bowl under his chin just in time. She wiped his mouth and gave him a sip of water. ‘When did you start to feel sick?’
‘During dinner.’ The boy laid his head back down on the pillow.
Kirby took his temperature. ‘Thirty-eight five. You’ve got a fever, just like Ben. I need to check your blood-sugar levels, OK?’
‘I can do it.’ Cameron tried to sit up and fell back.
‘Are you feeling dizzy?’ Kirby asked the rhetorical question as she quickly pricked his finger. Deftly placing the drop of blood neatly on the stick, she inserted it into the machine. ‘Two point seven. I’m giving you a glucagon injection into your thigh right now.’
But Cameron was too drowsy to reply.
‘Judy, can you do a glucometer check on Ben for me while I insert a drip into Cam?’
Judy nodded. ‘Sure. Do you think they’ve both picked up a virus? They’re in the same bunkhouse.’
Kirby concentrated on locating a vein. ‘I had thought Ben might have appendicitis but his examination doesn’t match up with that and now with Cameron I’m wondering if—’
Phillipa rushed in. ‘I’ve got four more boys, all with the same symptoms.’
Kirby taped Cameron’s IV in place, a sense of foreboding settling in her chest. ‘Are they all diabetic?’
‘Yes.’
She had kids dropping like flies. Running her hand through her hair, she marshalled her thoughts. ‘Is anyone else at camp other than the diabetics starting to get sick?’
Phillipa shook her head. ‘Everyone else is hale and hearty, chowing down to dinner as usual.’
She turned to Ben, who was more alert than Cameron. ‘Ben, have you eaten anything today that didn’t come from the KC kitchen?’
Guilt streaked across his cheeks and he dropped his gaze. ‘Maybe.’
Kirby kept her voice light. ‘I need you to tell me, mate, so I can work out what is making you and the other boys so sick.’
‘I had…I ate a chocolate bar.’ The mumbled words were barely audible. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t think it would make me hurl.’
She patted his arm. ‘I don’t think a chocolate bar would cause you to be this sick. Did you eat anything else?’
The sick boy’s gaze darted between Kirby, Judy and Phillipa, anxiety and fear duelling with a need to tell the truth. ‘We…we sneaked out to the Greasy Spoon.’
Kirby recognised the name of the take-away shop about half a kilometre away and suppressed a sigh. ‘Who’s “we”?’
He swallowed hard. ‘Unit C.’
‘And what did you eat?’
‘Chicken and chips. The lady gave it to us cheap.’
A vision of hot food sitting in an old bain-marie for longer than the allowed time took residence in Kirby’s mind. A cooling chicken would be the perfect vehicle for hosting salmonella. And the boys had the vomiting, nausea and abdominal pain that fitted the picture. She suppressed a groan at the thought of the diarrhoea that would inevitably follow.
She swung around to Judy. ‘So we have six boys so far. How many boys are in that bunkhouse?’
Judy grimaced. ‘Fourteen.’
‘Fourteen?’ She couldn’t keep the rising inflection of horror out of her voice. Fourteen vomiting diabetics. Fourteen kids at risk of hypoglycaemia. Not to mention other members of the public who might have eaten at the shop. Her mind started to race with the logistics of dealing with this outbreak.
The hospital only had six acute beds and based on what had happened so far they could expect more than double the current number of cases. She needed to set up an isolation ward, get extra medical supplies from Barago and organise an urgent courier to rush samples to the lab for an accurate diagnosis. As Port’s medical officer she had to notify the health department and shut down the Greasy Spoon pending investigat
ion and testing. But most importantly she would probably be treating and monitoring fourteen really sick children. Their care came first. How the hell was she going to divide herself up to meet every demand?
Judy and Phillipa looked at her expectantly. ‘So what’s your plan and how can we help?’
Nick dangled his legs over the edge of the Port Bathurst pier, a fishing rod in one hand and the other resting on Turbo’s collar. The dog was crouched down, calculating how to round up the seagulls who hovered close by, ever hopeful of a free feed.
‘Fishing is supposed to be relaxing, Turbo. You have to give in to the joy of sitting and waiting.’
Quizzical brown eyes met his gaze and Nick gave an ironic laugh. ‘Yeah, well, that’s the theory.’
Con Papadopoulos, one of his nursing-home patients, had told him that the pier at the turn of the tide was the place to catch dusky flathead. Fishing wasn’t something that Nick had ever really done but right now he was looking for new experiences, looking for anything that took his mind off a blue-eyed, blonde-haired beauty with a smile that sent his blood racing.
Fishing didn’t seem to be cutting it. Neither had cold showers, ten-K runs or fifty-K bike rides. No matter what he did, thoughts of Kirby roamed wild and free in his mind. He was used to getting what he wanted with women and the fact that she didn’t want him in her bed ate at him.
Friendship. The word tasted bitter in his mouth. How could she only want friendship when their desire for each other vibrated palpably between them?
He reeled in the line for the fifth time to find the hook bait-less yet again. He sighed—so far he’d only managed to feed the fish and feed them well. He opened the bait box to try again and his phone vibrated in his pocket. Wiping his hands on his jeans first, he pulled out the phone, a crazy jolt of joy making his heart skip when he read the display. Kirby.